


My dearest, my dearest,

by Niedergeschlagen



Series: Of Uranian Persuasion [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Courfeyrac being Courfeyrac, Established Relationship, M/M, Set in late 1830, Ugly Grantaire, Vixen Marius gives good advice, minor Joly/Musichetta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niedergeschlagen/pseuds/Niedergeschlagen
Summary: Combeferre sits down on the other chair and begins to loosen his cravat. He looks to be calmly deliberating this choice of topic. “He appears to be labouring under the assumption that you love me.”“Indeed.”“And that I do not return this sentiment,” Combeferre says.





	My dearest, my dearest,

Courfeyrac has never shied away from regarding himself as observant. He observes people in minute detail, in passing, almost nonchalantly letting his eyes travel over any tableau. Out of his friends, most people would probably name Jehan, quiet and watchful in his ways, as the keeper of secrets. In truth, Courfeyrac is the first to notice, though his loud extravaganza may suggest otherwise. Being loud has its perks; he is the first one to pry into the personal lives of others, and others tend to open their hearts to him, because ‘Oh, well, it’s just Courfeyrac!’ They know him to be a menace, but mostly harmless.  


Yet a fleeting moment one night at the Musain strips him of his self-proclaimed status.  


He is regaling Joly and anyone else willing to listen with a story of his latest mishap, flinging one arm in the air in a precarious manner to punctuate his tale, one arm slung across Marius’s shoulders, when for a split-second, he lets his eyes wander from Joly’s laughing face to the back of the room, where Combeferre is hunched over his papers, as is his way, and Enjolras is sitting by him. And Courfeyrac sees, for the first time in his life, Enjolras tender.  


Courfeyrac does not stop telling his story, for fear of drawing attention to that odd little scene unfolding in the corner. His mouth runs like a motor, but his mind is now occupied with questions. Eventually he lets his story peter off, and moves onto gently making fun of Marius, which requires less of him, and which Bossuet and Feuilly join in on.  


And so, Courfeyrac begins observing. Whenever his friends are all gathered in their regular haunts, he looks out of the corner of his eye and sees his two oldest friends, always together, huddled in private conversations. This is not new to them, everyone knows how Combeferre and Enjolras share views. Everyone knows they are on equal footing in awkwardness and social inability, albeit on different sides of the same prism. Where Enjolras excels in rousing masses and fails at keeping intimate congress, Combeferre is the opposite. But this is new to Courfeyrac, the curving of Enjolras’s body towards Combeferre like a trail of metal shavings following a magnet. And Enjolras, not the one to whore out his smiles, has taken to smiling at Combeferre at all times. He continually wears the same expression Joly does when he speaks of Musichetta. That vast gaze, spilling tenderness everywhere he looks, which is mostly Combeferre.  


It is to his horror, Courfeyrac recognises this as Enjolras in love. Enjolras, rigid, aplomb and Stoic, dedicated only to the Republic, married to the future of France, caught in the dark and passionate tendrils of love.  


And with whom? Combeferre, who is the very definition of neutral.  


Promptly, Courfeyrac decides not to take pity on Enjolras, who accepts compassion with the air of someone who has never been pitied before, with a jutted jaw and a dreadfully cold stare. When he settles down that night on the uncomfortable mattress, next to Marius, he does not mention Enjolras’s romantic endeavours. He lays his head on Marius’s chest and listens for his heartbeat, fluttering like a dove on its wings. He falls asleep with Marius’s lips pressed against his hair.

  


* * *

  
Now that he has seen, Courfeyrac cannot stop looking. He sees Enjolras pepper Combeferre’s shoulders and the back of his neck with, what someone perhaps might call unnecessary, touches in passing. He sees Enjolras, usually in lead, trail after Combeferre.  


Desperate in preserving Enjolras from heartbreak, Courfeyrac picks apart Combeferre as well – his composure, his constitution, his words, but finds nothing out of ordinary. It is starting to look terrifically so that Enjolras is alone in his endearment. Naturally, Combeferre returns Enjolras’s fraternal affections, this Courfeyrac knows, but he feels the discomfiting tugging of his heartstrings when Enjolras fondly lays a hand on Combeferre’s arm and calls him “my dearest friend”, which Combeferre answers with a brief, nigh listless smile.  


Courfeyrac, with his mind running a mile a minute, flinches at the prospect of Enjolras shifting the comma in his addressing of Combeferre from “my dearest Combeferre,” to “my dearest, Combeferre”. He dares, in the privacy of his home, to pity Enjolras. He attempts to keep this a secret, but when one Saturday morning he sits at the dinner table, reading a paper and he barely notices Marius stick a hand down his pants, he decides that it's not worth having to ruminate on the matter alone. He stills Marius’s hand and says: “I need your opinion on something, love.”  


Marius must be feeling saucy because instead of withdrawing his hand, he continues moving it. His grand gaze sweeps down from Courfeyrac’s face to his lap and up again. Then that minx bats his lashes and says: “Yes?”  


Gulping down a large lungful of air, Courfeyrac begins, a little shakily, recounting his observations over the past few weeks. He highlights especially the lack of apparent reciprocation on Combeferre’s part.  


“Combeferre is so secretive,” Courfeyrac says, “nobody knows if he even – _don’t stop now, Marius, mon Dieu_ – if he even – yes, yes, _yes_ – is of the Uranian persuasion.”  


Marius dips his head down and kisses the soft expanse of Courfeyrac’s lower abdomen where his breeches are open and his billowy shirt has bunched up around his hips. He mutters something against Courfeyrac’s skin that Courfeyrac doesn’t really catch, partly because of Marius and partly because the words are much too quiet. Marius kisses his way up.  


“Ask Grantaire,” Marius says against his lips.  


Of course, why had Courfeyrac not thought of that? Grantaire, the eyes of Paris, would know even the most unmannerly of secrets. Marius runs a thumb over his tip and Courfeyrac bites his lip. “Yes, yes, I’ll ask – ah – Grantaire.” And he comes in Marius’s hand with the shame of another man’s name on his lips.  


Marius smiles. “Why now, should I ask Grantaire to join us sometime?”  


Courfeyrac, flustered, hides his face in Marius’s chest.

  


* * *

  


“Say, Grantaire,” Courfeyrac begins the following night before a meeting in the Corinthe, “with your eyes like Hyperion’s, your undivided diligent attention – “  


“Monsieur, you flatter me,” Grantaire interrupts him and raises his cup in salutation. On the table before him are two empty bottles, and Courfeyrac does not doubt Grantaire harbours another somewhere in the folds of his coat he has not yet shucked off. The nights are getting cold, and even the most hot-blooded of their friends are shivering. “What will you know, Courfeyrac?”  


Discretion in matters like this is key, and Courfeyrac is careful not to defame Combeferre’s character in the eyes of society, though with Grantaire no subject is too crass, too hedonistic or too Godless.  


“What do you know of Combeferre?”  


Grantaire swishes the liquid in his cup thoughtfully. “Not much. He is unlike you, monsieur, he does not share his life as freely as you do. However, I know that he is intimate friends with Enjolras. He hails from Grenoble and is a student of medicine. But I suppose you ask me this to pry into the nature of his relationship with Enjolras?”  


Courfeyrac nods.  


Grantaire’s strange, mismatched face twists sadly, and that’s all Courfeyrac needs to know. He pats Grantaire’s shoulder and rises from the table. When he turns, he sees Enjolras leaning in to whisper something in Combeferre’s ear. There is a novelty in the moment for Courfeyrac, because he sees Combeferre duck his head in amusement and then smile in a way he has never smiled at anyone else; the left corner of his mouth curls and there is something impish about that face.  


While Grantaire is not a dear friend to Courfeyrac, he cannot but feel bad for the man. It is clear to all but Enjolras that Grantaire nurses devotion for him. Courfeyrac now sees that his fondness will never be returned. He almost asks Grantaire to join him and Marius in bed.  


  


* * *

  


Enjolras strips off his waistcoat with little difficulty and tosses the garment on the back of the chair that has quickly become his in the sitting room. He stares out of the dark window for a while, lost in thought, before sitting down on the same chair and starting to work on his boots.  


He eyes Combeferre, who follows him to the sitting room, after having latched the front door and left his coat in its rightful place on the hook. At home, Enjolras becomes disorganised, but Combeferre remains retentive, habitual, cleanly.  


“Have you noticed Courfeyrac snooping on us? He reminds me of a police spy,” Enjolras remarks. His tone of voice is light, playful even. In the company of Combeferre he becomes almost a different person.  


Combeferre sits down on the other chair and begins to loosen his cravat. He looks to be calmly deliberating this choice of topic. “He appears to be labouring under the assumption that you love me.”  


“Indeed.”  


“And that I do not return this sentiment,” Combeferre says. He pulls off his cravat and unbuttons the first button of his shirt. He folds the silk cravat and puts it in his pocket, so as not to lose it. He does not undress, only watches Enjolras, now indecent, prowl around the sitting room.  


After a few minutes, Enjolras gives up on his inspection of the room and makes his way, barefooted and wearing only his shirt and trousers, over to Combeferre. Rather sensually, Enjolras drapes himself over Combeferre, straddles his hips and plants a wet, open-mouthed kiss on his neck. His fingers start on the buttons of Combeferre’s waistcoat, he undresses him swiftly, with the expertise of someone who has done this a hundred times.  


Combeferre gathers Enjolras in his arms and rises from the chair. Petulant as he is, Enjolras clings to his neck and stands on his booted feet. Combeferre begins walking them over to the bed chamber with Enjolras swaying against him, still trailing kisses up and down his neck.  


“Mon coeur,” Combeferre complains when Enjolras hooks one leg around his hips and crashes them against the wall. “Stop misbehaving.”  


Enjolras pulls back and looks him dead in the eye. “My dearest, what else might we delight in but civil disobedience?”  


“I love you,” responds Combeferre. “My heart belongs to you only.”  


Enjolras puts his hand on Combeferre's chin and tugs down his face to kiss him on the lips. “And I love you – most ardently.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, demons! 
> 
> It's 2018, the year of dabbling in rarer pairings in Les Misérables (couldn't resist tossing my boy, ugly Grantaire, in there, though). Also, I know the word ”Uranian” was first used in 1835ish to describe gay men, but I plead artistic freedom (and not ever wanting to use the word sodomy). Thanks for reading, all three of you. Much love from me. 
> 
> Oh, spot the cheeky Pride & Prejudice and Hamilton references!


End file.
